An embarrassment to welders everywhere

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Last week i had the job of fabricating some beams for a welder to come along and weld it, i was horrified by what i saw, see if any of you agree with meEvery now and again you come across someone doing some welding which makes you wonder, why certain people even bother to do it. With most stick welding you cannot rush but doing the work slow and still making a hash of it. I'm not a Arc welder by trade but i do know the fundamentals cover most welding techniques especially when welding thick material and getting that initial root run done perfect all the way round. Just have a look at some of these pictures which i was privileged to take albeit without the welder knowing.Now a sort description of the work....1. To reassemble 4 metre long box sections which have been cut to allow access to the building, these box sections are 300mm x 300mm x 16mm thick ( 12" square by 1/2" thick in old money )   2. prep ends 60 degrees to facilitate weld3. Assemble in a Jig for straightness, using Laser level and Long Straight edge for back up. Root fill gap determined by root rod thickness this instance its 3.2mm4. Adding 20mm thick x 500mm Strongbacks  and cut out to allow for welding to all four sides, mig welded 6mm fillet to boxNow the pictures, and tell me what you think....The Picture above is pretty hard to believe, but it appears that he has removed the large 20mm thick Strongback and replaced it with a much smaller 10mm thick one, the side has been rooted and partly filled with a hot pass but check out the top? Where's the root pass? and why has the large strongback been removed when the work is not yet completed?You can see in the picture above how much the top root gap has closed in due to not being filling all in one go, i have place a 2.5mm rod there so you can see its closed up to less than the thickness of the rod.You can see the 2nd or 3rd hot pass on the side but no root fill or hot pass on the top, what is the point in levelling these beams when you don't complete a root fill all away round the box before even attempting to do a 2nd or 3rd fill hot passWhy was the strongback removed before any of the welding was completed? They are there to keep the beam true and level.Crazy set up with Trestles too far away, allowing the beam to stress downwardsLast resort... Whack some wedges in there  ???The gap has reduced from 3.2mm to practically almost closed
Reply:Part 2..And why is it closing? Theres a 10mm mickey mouse strongback attempting to keep it open  yep its definitely closing up  ???Sod it,  fill it up anywayanother view of how close the gap has becomeLast resort was to attempt to drive some wedges to try and open the gap, after the beam was practically welded on 3 sides, ha,ha!! No chance, I can't understand for the life in me why the root fill was not completed in a complete turn, ie  all four sides. Allowing the same method of filling with the hot passes and then the final cappingAfter spending a considerable effort ensuring that the beams were true and level, via 3 approved methods, why did this welder decide to only weld 3 sides almost fully to the point of capping and leaving one side completely void of weld? Replacing the large 20mm x 500mm Strongbacks with smaller 10mm plates goes beyond the rules of logic, and then attempting to what wedges into the gap when 3 sides have already been welded less the cap is so unreal
Reply:here are some pictures of the finished beam.....and a close up of how much the beam has moved....If it was down to me it would be recut and redone, and the guy kicked off site  >
Reply:My guess:Cant weld overhead so he flipped it?Buy American, or don't whine when you end up on the bread line.
Reply:sorry to hear that your time was ruined by some jackass who wanted to play welder
Reply:Thanks guys Its just pure laziness. I hate it when you make the effort to get something set up right only to have some nutter come alone and make a right mess of it.
Reply:Might have been able to weld but screwed up in technique.  Hard to believe he had 1/8" gap to begin with.  Could have driven wedges to maintain gap while tacking corners.  Leave wedges in on sides not actually being welded.  Definitely complete root before starting 2nd pass.Unless someone has serious concerns about lack of penetration, experiment weld on backside should pull beam straighter.
Reply:All he had to do was 1/4 long tacks....
Reply:Not bad actual welding from what I can see.  For a job like this I usually just tack it up with some good solid tacks and grind most of the tack out when I am ready to do that side.  Obviously this welder didn't account for distortion properly and should have balanced the welding evenly around the joint as he did it to prevent the weld from pulling the joint out of alignment.I would have found trying to weld vert. up through the small window in that strongback a minor p.i.t.a. also, so I can see why he was tempted into removing it rightly or wrongly.Although it may be acceptable to weld them and it can be done properly, I wonder why such small and short beams just were not replaced with new and the cut ones scrapped, or repurposed?"The reason we are here is that we are not all there"SA 200Idealarc TM 300 300MM 200MM 25130a SpoolgunPrecision Tig 375Invertec V350 ProSC-32 CS 12 Wire FeederOxweld/Purox O/AArcAirHypertherm Powermax 85LN25
Reply:The root weld is a full penetration weld idea this is easily done with the strongbacks. Thats the reason we didn't just tack the corners as lifting the the whole beam out of the Jig and weighting 1.2 ton there had to be a stronger method of lining up the box and leaving the root free for a continuous weld.The Stongbacks were welding on with mig. all the require method was to simply weld the root all round and then do at least 2 hot passes before even thinking of Grinding off the Strongbacks. What this guy was doing was welding up a root one side then taking off the strongback and doing the hot pass, he replace the large strongback with a smaller thinner one which does absolutely nothing when using Low Hydrogen rods.His method of removing the strongbacks was with a large sledge hammer and hoping to smash them off when some of the sides haven't even had a root fill.I thought being the fabricator on the job i would of had some say in the methods used and the quality of the workmanship, Apparently not The beams are some 32ft long but had to be cut into 3 at the workshop so that they would fit in the goods lift on the site, It was on the 4, 5, and 6th floor that we're doing the future staircase
Reply:Hmmmmmmm Now I know why I like SMALL JOBS........  Miller Dynasty 350Twenty Six HammersThree Crow BarsBig Rock
Reply:If it was lined up properly and tacked up no problem. It appears that there were no tacks prior to weldout.
Reply:Originally Posted by Gerry1964The root weld is a full penetration weld idea this is easily done with the strongbacks. Thats the reason we didn't just tack the corners as lifting the the whole beam out of the Jig and weighting 1.2 ton there had to be a stronger method of lining up the box and leaving the root free for a continuous weld.The Stongbacks were welding on with mig. all the require method was to simply weld the root all round and then do at least 2 hot passes before even thinking of Grinding off the Strongbacks. What this guy was doing was welding up a root one side then taking off the strongback and doing the hot pass, he replace the large strongback with a smaller thinner one which does absolutely nothing when using Low Hydrogen rods.His method of removing the strongbacks was with a large sledge hammer and hoping to smash them off when some of the sides haven't even had a root fill.I thought being the fabricator on the job i would of had some say in the methods used and the quality of the workmanship, Apparently not The beams are some 32ft long but had to be cut into 3 at the workshop so that they would fit in the goods lift on the site, It was on the 4, 5, and 6th floor that we're doing the future staircase
Reply:What is it with Tacks ??? To do a continuous full pen root there can be no tacks in the VEE thats why the box is held true with the strongbacks.To allow the root to penatrate completely all round
Reply:Originally Posted by Gerry1964What is it with Tacks ??? To do a continuous full pen root there can be no tacks in the VEE thats why the box is held true with the strongbacks.To allow the root to penatrate completely all round